Download: YouTube Music For Android & iPhone Arrives

In a move to challenge the likes of Apple Music and Spotify, YouTube has launched a dedicated music discovery app for mobile devices, and as one would expect, it’s called YouTube Music. The app was promised along with the controversial launch of YouTube Red and offers a couple of excellent perks to those who sign up for the video sharing network’s new ad-free subscription service. Like many releases from Google, though, it is currently only available in the US. For Android users in other regions, we’ve added a download link to its APK at the end of this post, but know that you won’t be able to access content from within the app without a US-based Google account. Read on for further details.

At its core, YouTube Music is somewhat similar to YouTube Gaming. The app is a discovery portal for a music videos on YouTube, one that is second only to the gaming-related content on the network, and lets you search through said videos by song, artist or album, and then there are the usual sections for top and trending videos as well as one for content by new artists. Playing any video generates a station for non-stop playback of similar content, much like with Apple Music, or YouTube itself, really – the major difference here being that YouTube Music restricts its endless queues to music videos. Moreover, using a “station variety” slider within the station’s settings, users can tweak how related the other videos in the queue are to the one they played.

The best features have been reserved for YouTube Red subscribers, though. Apart from ad-free playback, the subscription allows users to seamlessly switch to an audio-only mode and back, have videos automatically picked out and saved for offline viewing based on your playback history, and most important of all, background playback, with which you’ll be able to listen to music while using other apps or with the screen on standby.

The premise behind YouTube Music and Gaming might seem to be the same, but it’s quite clear that YouTube’s core aim with the app isn’t to offer its user-base an alternative app dedicated to music but to win over customers of reining music subscription services, or it wouldn’t have restricted a feature as basic as background playback to paying subscribers.

Even in its infancy, YouTube Music has the potential to give its competitors a run for their money. It doesn’t just cover big names and indie music, but for new and emerging artists as well, many of whom make their debut through YouTube, and let’s not forget the fact that unlike the competition, it offers videos. To top it all off, the $12.99/month YouTube Red subscription comes bundled with Google Play Music All Access for those who’d rather opt for a more conventional music streaming solution.

You can download YouTube Music for free from the links provided below. As mentioned earlier, the app is currently US-only. Android users may download and install the provided APK file but you’ll need a YouTube account with its location set to the US and possibly a VPN to play videos.

I'm an engineer, blogger, and graphic designer who loves creating and experimenting with different forms of online content when he's not looking for a mix of inspiration and escape in PC gaming, comic books and anime. You can find me on Twitter and Google+.